Day by Day
by laceycake
Summary: The peaceful life Chell has created since escaping Aperture is disrupted when Wheatley, still corrupt, returns from space. Back in the facility he had sworn to take care of her, and he intends to keep his promise, whether Chell likes it or not. Contains "fraternization" but is by no means a romance. DISCONTINUED.
1. A Stone's Throw from Normal

**A/N: **

**WELP**

**I made this account strictly so I could organize and track my favorite stories, but certain tumblrchums have convinced me to upload my own stuff so**

**HERE HAVE THIS NONSENSE I GUESS. AU cyborg!Wheatley.**

Part 1: "A Stone's Throw from Normal"

There were stars outside Chell's window. Not the vague pinpricks of light that usually dotted the night sky, but actual, geometric _stars _like paper cutouts wheeling through the empty blackness outside. Something about the sight struck Chell as incredibly odd, but she couldn't quite place what it was.

Shaking her head she pushed off the floor, sending herself drifting upwards to retrieve her book from where it was floating near the ceiling. As she tucked her legs into a comfortable position beneath her hovering body, she once more had the sense of things being inexplicably _off_.

Chell tried to push this feeling down, but it kept gnawing at her in the back of her mind as she rifled through the blank pages. Finally with a sigh she snapped the book shut and tossed it uncaringly behind her.

"Shouldn't throw things like that, you'll put someone's eye out." Fear, stabbingly cold, shot through her, and Chell felt paralyzed. There was no mistaking that voice.

"Hello there, luv," Wheatley purred from behind her. "Missed you."

Chell's eyes popped open wide and she stared unseeingly at the ceiling for a moment before consciousness returned to her fully. She sat up, quickly scanned her little home for any sign of an intruder, and upon finding nothing and no one, flopped back down with a sigh.

_Only a dream._ She supposed that she'd brought it upon herself, after watching that movie. A story about the subconscious was bond to make her own act up. Groaning inwardly, she pressed her hand against her eyes. She thought she had been making so much progress when it came to… _him_.

With another heavy sigh she swung her legs over the edge of the bed, stretched until her back popped, and trudged the nine steps it took to reach the kitchen area. She filled the teakettle from the plastic drum shoved into one of the cabinets, noting that she'd need to refill it soon, and set it over the Bunsen burner she had taken from a nearby high school's chemistry classroom.

She went about her usual morning routine as she waited for the water to heat, each movement ingrained in muscle memory so that her mind was free to wander as it would. Today it wandered backwards, tracing the path she had taken to this point.

When GLaDOS had finally set her free, or if one were feeling less charitable, left her stranded in the middle of nowhere, nearly two years ago, Chell had pushed through the seemingly endless fields of wheat, companion cube in tow, with a dream of humanity urging her onward. She was giddy with triumph and looking forward to interaction with someone, _anyone_ who wouldn't try to poison or burn or crush her.

She would get a job, and go to the grocery store, and spend Friday nights with friends. She would _have_ friends, and a couch, and a shelf full of books, and all the things she hadn't had since the time of her vague memories of Before Aperture.

Stumbling upon the town where she now lived had seemed a gift from heaven after days of uniform vegetation. Coming to grips with the fact that it was completely and utterly abandoned had been hell. She had raced through the silent streets, peered into the windows of every house, hoping to find one, just one, that wasn't empty. What she found instead was an awful lot of dust and one newspaper that had mostly been protected from the weather in its plastic bag.

The front page was faded from god only knew how many years of sun, and some places were smudged to the point of illegibility, but she was able to piece together a basic gist of what had happened to the town; and very probably the rest of the world. The prerecorded voice in the ruined test chambers hadn't been kidding when it spoke of "circumstances of potentially apocalyptic significance." From the looks of things, Chell was the only breathing human left, at least in the vicinity.

She had allowed herself the day to weep and rage at this terrible cosmic joke, but after a night's rest in the overgrown park she had scrubbed her cheeks clean of dried tears and vowed to make the most of things.

The shriek of the kettle broke Chell out of her reverie. Shaking her head to clear out the morbid thoughts she filled a mug with hot water and added a generous scoop of instant coffee crystals. She preferred it black and strong, relishing the bitter taste and the warm aroma. She finished off the berries she had picked the day before for breakfast, lamenting a little that they had gone soft and sort of soggy during the night. There was no way, as of yet, to power the refrigerator and keep perishables like fruit fresh.

But the berries were still sweet, a wonderful contrast to the coffee, and Chell's mood brightened significantly as she popped them into her mouth, one by one, crunching the seeds between her teeth. By the time she trundled out the door of the Winnebago, the melancholy brought on by her dream had lifted. She tipped her face up to the sky, smiling at the feel of the sun on her skin. GLaDOS' claims be damned, pressing her cheek against a hard light bridge didn't even compare.

Chell knew for a fact. She had tried it.

Still beaming, Chell set up her laptop so that the small solar-powered battery could soak up energy while she was out and about, and set off on another "shopping trip", pushing her clever (if she did say so herself) handmade cart in front of her.

She had fashioned the trolley from several old skateboards and her companion cube. After discovering a seam along one of the cube' s faces and curious as to what the weighted companion cube was actually weighted _with_, she had pried it open using an old crowbar she had found, doing her best to ignore the questionable reddish-brown stains on the tool.

As it turned out, nestled inside the companion cube was a second companion cube, which in turn contained a third. There were five in total, stacked like nesting dolls, and she had repurposed them as she had seen fit. The largest she used to collect the rainwater she used to drink and cook with, the second for her collection cart, the third and fourth for storage and stepstools, and the fifth, which played a charming little song when tapped, to help her find sleep when it eluded her.

Chell whistled, practically the only sound she could make, a cheerful tune from a movie she had recently watched, as she strolled through the deserted streets. She knew that being so chipper in her situation was probably more than a stone's throw from normal, but then again, in the current state of affairs "normal" no longer applied.

The isolation _should_ have been driving her out of her mind, but truth of the matter was that Chell was used to being alone. She had her freedom, and that was enough.

Her first stop was one of the houses she had yet to explore in a very upscale neighborhood near the center of town, and when she left she was rather pleased with her haul. Whoever had owned the house had obviously had a very eclectic taste in entertainment, and had fed it with the help of the Internet; Their collections of books, music, and movies had included titles that Chell had never seen in any of the stores or other houses in town. Many of them looked to be foreign or old and she was excited to check them out.

She had also taken a metal wind chime fashioned to resemble hummingbirds and a lamp that looked like a mermaid. Her cart quickly filled with odds and ends of all sorts; a carved wooden owl, a complicated star-shaped puzzle, a case full of Gameboy games, a stuffed toy dinosaur.

At first Chell had felt terribly guilty about simply taking whatever she felt like. Every time she had lifted a can from a grocery store shelf or some trinket from a house, a little voice in the back of her head had admonished that _stealing was wrong_.

Slowly, she had stopped thinking that way. That lesson was taught to her a long time ago, in completely different circumstances, and it no longer applied in this vacated world. Besides, there was no one around who would miss these items, no one to use them unless she did. The people who had once laid claim to them were long gone, more than likely dead.

Chell once again pushed away her darker thoughts, and instead focused her attention on the increasingly loud grumblings of her stomach. Based on the sun, she had spent the entire morning and a fair chunk of the afternoon collecting, so she ambled toward the park where she had spent her first night, aiming to take her lunch from the peach tree that grew there.

She often ate from and under the shade of that tree. The view from that spot was lovely; the once manicured grass had been overrun by wildflowers and animals visited frequently. Birds flickered around like little bits of living confetti and every now and again a liquid-eyed deer would amble gracefully by, undisturbed by her presence.

Chell had a certain weakness for peaches. Everything about them was so pleasantly stimulating to the senses: the lovely two-tone of the color, the soft fuzz on the outside, the sweet smell and taste. It was almost like they were the world's way of apologizing for the ascetic nature of Aperture.

Parking her cart, Chell circled around the tree. She had picked all of the fruit that she could reach from the ground already it seemed, so she'd need to climb. She had left her long-fall boots back at home, but the tree wasn't very tall and a spill wasn't likely to do much damage.

She wedged her foot in the fork between two low branches, pushing upward and hooking one elbow around a branch to steady herself, and snagged two peaches easily. There was another nearby, looking full and ripe and especially appealing, and Chell leaned forward to reach for it. Her fingertips could just barely brush the fruit, so she let go of her steadying branch and lunged for it.

She managed to grab it, but in doing so overbalanced and toppled backwards out of the tree. As she fell there was a brief, stinging pain on the back of her neck, followed by a snap.

She landed hard on her back, coughing as the air was knocked out of her. She picked herself off the ground and briefly took stock; nothing felt terribly damaged, at worst she would have some bruises tomorrow. What she was really worried about was—

Her hand flew to her throat, searching in vain for what she knew wasn't there. She could guess what had happened: when she fell the chain had snagged on a branch and broken. Frantic, Chell got on her hands and knees to search, growing increasingly distressed with every passing moment that she couldn't find it…

Finally, she spotted something, a bright blue spark in the grass about four feet to her left. Chell breathed a sigh of relief as her hand closed around the ring, and she held it clutched in her fist near her heart as it slowly returned to its normal rhythm.

With another sigh, this one irritated, she opened her hand and stared at the ring. It was either silver or white gold (Chell had never understood the difference) and set with a large, bright blue gem that winked when it caught the light just so, much as— _he_— used to wink at her.

Chell snorted, feeling a little disgusted with herself. How pathetic was she, panicking about losing a token meant to remind her of someone who she would be better off forgetting? How pathetic was she for carrying the damn thing around in the first place? She clenched her fist back around it and reared back, made to throw it as hard as she could into the tall grass.

She held the pose for a moment before lowering her arm and staring at the ring again. She had found it not long before she had moved into the Winnebago, at the last proper house she had tried to make her home in, along with her second ring, square-cut and yellow, which she kept on her beside table. Since she had— _appropriated_ it, she had had several moments like this one where she seriously considered tossing it, and any lingering attachment to Wheatley along with it. Every time she couldn't bring herself to do it.

He had been kind to her, at least before he had been plugged in to GLaDOS' chassis. He had made her laugh, had risked his neck to break her out of the testchambers, and he had held her hand in the dark. He had promised to stay with her when they made it out, to take care of her. Practically her entire life was a testament to the fact that she didn't need him to, but she had appreciated the offer.

Maybe she even looked forward to sharing her life outside with him.

She scowled and shook her head hard enough to make it throb a little. He had also, she reminded herself, punched her down a near-bottomless pit, forced her to run a gamut of absolutely insane tests over _more_ bottomless pits just so he could _get off_ on it, and with his spikes, bombs and booby traps he had come closer to killing her than GLaDOS ever had. Really, he deserved to be spaced. She was happy he was so far away

If she kept telling herself that, maybe one day she'd actually believe it.

Chell jammed the ring into her pocket, making a mental note to find a new chain to put it on. Her good mood completely soured, she ate her slightly bruised peaches without really tasting them, and then headed home.

It took Chell longer than usual to make the return trip to the Winnebago; instead of her normal brisk walk she dragged her feet, and so it was nearly sunset by the time she made it back to the broken-down mobile home.

She had tried living in a normal house in the beginning. The first one she had chosen was a little cottage-style number with yellow siding and lots of windows. It had flowered curtains and cheerful, colorful décor and Chell had fallen in love with the place immediately. The whole building seemed to exude an air of friendliness.

Until she had tried to sleep there.

Tried being the operative word. She had been unable to drift off, her thoughts tangling up into one big knot of anxiety because she felt like an intruder. Even if it was empty now, his house had once been a home to someone that was not her. Someone had gone to the trouble of decorating it to their taste, had cooked dinner in that kitchen and watched television on the couch.

She could feel them there, that faceless family that had once been happy in that house; that had more than likely met with a violent, messy death soon after they had fled from it. The next morning, after a long and stressful night, Chell had fled as well.

She had tried living in several other houses, but was always struck by the same existential terror. Every house was haunted, even if the ghosts were only in her mind

She didn't have this problem with the Winnebago. It had obviously belonged to someone once, as evidenced by the spoiled food she'd had to scrape out of the cupboards, but no one had spent their life there. No one had called this place their home until her, and so she could.

Fixing it up hadn't taken very long, as she hadn't had any job or social obligations to distract her from the repairs. She liked to think she had done quite well for herself, considering the rather bleak circumstances she faced.

The engine still didn't run, so nothing electric worked, nor did the heat or AC, but she had battery-powered lamps for light, and could keep the inside temperature fairly comfortable through clever insulation and a very carefully monitored fire in the winter.

Once home, Chell covered her cart with a tarp to sort through her new treasures later, and headed over to the metal pump near the rear of the trailer. As she worked it, throwing her entire body weight onto the lever, she contemplated how this was probably her proudest achievement.

Before if she had wanted a bath she would have to make a trek that couldn't have been less than half a mile to a nearby stream. This was fine on mild days, but though the swim felt fantastic during the heat of the summer the return journey had often left her so sweaty she may as well not have bathed at all. And bathing when the stream was frozen over was absolutely out of the question.

Now she could shower everyday if she wanted. The water was tepid at best because she had no way to heat it, and showering in the winter was a pain, but at least now she could do it without fearing hypothermia.

Chell pumped just enough water for about ten minutes in the shower and, grabbing her laptop, trudged inside, but instead of heading for the bathroom she slumped down at the small table. She buried her face in her hands and allowed herself to mope, just for a moment. Then she slapped her cheeks lightly and decided there was only one way to pull herself up out of this funk.

She was going to bake a cake.

Chell made cake more than was probably healthy for her, but she kept active enough to burn it off and besides, who was going to scold her for her diet? She rummaged through her pantry and cupboards for the necessary bowl and measuring tools, the flour, sugar, powdered eggs and milk, the cocoa. She threw the ingredients together quickly, recipe memorized, and lit the gas oven with a match.

She was done with her shower well before the cake finished baking, and had time to mix up frosting, to boot.

Later that night, she sat on the steps that led up to her home and ate a generous slice of her cake. Her laptop was playing one of her new movies, where an attractive couple danced a waltz in swingtime in black and white, and her ring was back around her neck on a new chain. She watched the stars, and tried not to think about a particular cyborg that now resided among them.

Although, she did wonder a little what it was like up in space. She had been there, but she had been so distracted by the fact that she couldn't breathe and trying to cling desperately to Wheatley, her one anchor to the Earth, that she hadn't gotten much of an impression of it besides "lacking oxygen".

She wondered if the stars were as pretty from up there as they were from down here. Just then, almost as if her thoughts had summoned it, a shooting star arced across the night sky, trailing light.

Chell wasn't a superstitious person, normally, but tonight she decided to take that star as a good omen. She closed her eyes and wished for nothing in particular. She went to bed that night with no idea of what that streak of light really meant.

She found out a few days later as she was going through a flea market that had evidentially been abandoned right in the middle of business. There were some places on the ground where she could see the trampled remains of now useless money that had been dropped in the chaos.

Chell was examining an extremely ugly ceramic dog, with large drooping jowls and even larger, droopier eyes when it happened.

"LADY!" Chell started, dropping the dog to shatter against the pavement and she would have shrieked in surprise had she had a voice.

She whipped around to see him standing there, bouncing on his heels with his hands balled into fists in his excitement. She recognized him, this tiny (he barely came up to Chell's shoulder, and she was no giant herself) cyborg with his manic yellow eyes and shock of white-blonde hair standing on end. His name, if she remembered correctly, was Apollo, and the last time she had seen him had been in the depths of Aperture as he'd been drawn, cheering, into space.

What was he doing here? Dread started to creep up her spine.

"Lady. Ooh, lady, ooh, hi lady. You're on Earth. Hey lady, I'm on Earth! Came back to Earth. Yeah. Came home! Yeah, both came back."

Despite the heat of the day, Chell felt cold. 'Both.' That meant—

"Hello there, luv." She spun around again, dizzy, but not from the sudden movement. Wheatley stood not four feet from her, leaning on a booth. She took one look at him, and from the set of his mouth in an arrogant smirk, the casually predatory stance, the way half of his diodes glowed red, and most of all, the indefinable but unmistakable _look_ in the depths of his blue eyes, she knew.

He was still corrupt. Not even two years in the depths of space had been able to purge him of it. Chell took an involuntary step backwards and his grin widened.

"Missed you."


	2. So Nice to See You Again

PART 2: Nice to See You Again…

Chell had plenty of experience with fear. Her entire time in Aperture had been one long blur of terror, with a few notable exceptions owed, ironically enough, to the very same being that inspired her current panic.

Truth be told, she'd had a fair deal of trouble adjusting to the utter _lack_ of immanent peril in her life outside. For months she had been jumpy, even the slightest sound putting her on the alert before her nerves finally got the memo that there were no bullets or bombs or metal spikes to harm her outside. Now the rush of adrenaline in her blood was almost comforting in its familiarity.

Muscles tightening, heart racing, her body slipped back into a state of battle-readiness as easy as breathing, and Chell was proud that she hadn't been spoiled into weakness by safety. Never taking her eyes off Wheatley, she reached back to snatched her trusty crowbar from the cart and hefted it.

Dropping into a fighting stance she snarled, a growl, one of the other few sounds she could produce, tearing out of her throat. Even taking her small stature into consideration, with the hard, wiry muscles she's developed in the testchambers and maintained through her exertions outside, she liked to think she cut quite the fearsome figure.

Wheatley seemed to disagree, failing to look at all intimidated. In fact, he seemed downright amused. Chell seethed. That wouldn't do at all. She'd show him. Show him that she wasn't his little test subject anymore. That he was no longer god-like and no longer in control.

It wouldn't be too hard. Chell knew from their time together as allies that Wheatley could not abide pain of any sort, and she was willing to bet that the influence of the GLaDOS chassis had not changed this, just as it had not changed his haphazard thought processes or tendency to ramble.

She would never be able to take him in a fight; his mechanical components and even his sheer size gave him too great a physical advantage. Her strength, speed, and reflexes were no match for his.

But she wouldn't _need_ to best him to win this. If she showed that she could, and would, hurt him as much as she could before submitting, he would back off. She hoped.

When he took a step toward her she brandished the crowbar in front of her, swung it as hard as she could into a nearby booth. The dry wood splintered under the blow with a satisfying crunch, and despite the fact that the metal dug painfully into her palms and the impact sang up her arms, Chell had to force down a smirk when Wheatley paused, his eyes widening slightly and the corners of his mouth twitching downward nervously.

His hesitation was unfortunately short lived. Then that smirk was back in place, even widening, and his eyes flickered with cold, blue light. Chell's fierce expression faltered, the crowbar drooping a bit as her grip slackened ever so slightly. She too recovered quickly, and swung her weapon hard enough that it whistled as it cut through the air.

"L-lady?" Apollo stammered, and _he_ at least sounded appropriately terrified. Wheatley glanced at the tiny cyborg, smug expression softening slightly.

"No need to be scared, mate," he said, his tone surprisingly gentle. Even more surprising was that the smaller cyborg seemed comforted by this. Chell's brow furrowed and the crowbar drooped.

"I'm sure she is _bloody_ dangerous…" There was an edge of mocking laughter in his voice as he said this and it made Chell flush with anger.

"But then, she's not the only one who is. Is she?" His voice went low and dangerous as he turned to face her again, and Chell felt like something ice-cold and slimy had crawled down her spine. Much to her horror, she found herself paralyzed as Wheatley strode toward her.

It was like everything was moving in slow motion. It only took Wheatley a few steps to close the distance between them, but each one seemed to last for ages and the air in her lungs moved like molasses and every instinct screamed at her to _run, damn you, get the hell out of there! _but there seemed to be some disconnect between her brain and her body and it just wouldn't _listen_.

When his shadow fell over her she finally regained some control over herself, swinging her crowbar at him almost on reflex. His arm darted forward quicker than any human's could have and he caught it mid-arc with an ugly, meaty thud. She watched the synthetic flesh of his palm split and tear under the impact, revealing the circuitry within his hand. Clear hydraulic fluid leaked from the wound to trickle down his wrist, and a few sparks leapt out, but if Wheatley cared or even noticed, he didn't show it.

Numbly, she took note that she had been wrong about his corruption's effect on his pain tolerance.

She was frozen once more, and could only stare up at him, knees shaking slightly, but she was determined not to let her brave front crumple. But even though her mouth remained set, her eyebrows knitted angrily downward, she was sure that he could see the unmasked terror in her eyes as he grinned and loomed over her.

"Now is that any way to greet an old friend?" he crooned, leaning down and angling his face closer to hers. "And after I've been gone for so long too." He clicked his tongue at her in playful reprimand.

Chell tried to tug her weapon out of his hand, hoping she could get another swing in, but his grip on it was nearly as iron as the bar itself. The edges were digging into her palms, which were still sore from the rebound when she'd hit the booth, but she didn't dare let go. Instead she tightened her hold, trying to ignore the way her skin stung.

"I'll be honest," he said. "You're sort of hurting my feelings, luv." He pretended to pout, but was evidentially too amused to maintain the expression, the corners of his mouth twitching before curling back up into a wide smirk.

"After all, I did come _all_ this way just to see you." With his free hand Wheatley touched her throat, running a finger up from her collarbone to the bottom of her chin. Chell flinched away as best she could while maintaining her hold on her weapon.

He pulled up on the bar, trying to dislodge it from her hold, but Chell wasn't about to give up her greatest defense so easily. She kept a tight grip on it, even after her arms were fully extended over her head, even as she had to stretch up on her toes, as she felt her feet lose contact with the ground.

He simply held her there, dangling an inch in the air from the crowbar, using his inhuman strength and gravity to his advantage. Even as she clutched harder at it, Chell could feel her hands sliding downward, the skin of her palms splitting against the rough edges.

She dropped back to the ground and the slight jarring vibration of impact that travelled up her legs was enough to restore her control of them. Not missing a beat Chell swiveled and made a break for it. She had no chance of outrunning him in the open but if she had enough of a head start maybe she could lose him among the maze of booths…

It was a waste of both effort and hope; with the same terrifying swiftness he had used to intercept her attack, Wheatley's arm was hooked across her belly and jerked her backwards. It drove from her lungs and she spun as she lost her balance, winding up crashing face-first into his chest.

Panic shot through her when she felt his hand on the back of her neck because _this was the part where he killed her_, where he snapped her spine or crushed her and this time there was no heaven-sent conversion gel, no portal gun, no way to save herself. She squeezed her eyes shut, steeled herself for the inevitable. She would face it bravely at least; deny him the satisfaction of knowing how frightened she really was.

A moment passed, and another, and there was no pain, no crunch of breaking bone or wet squelch of rupturing flesh. Only Wheatley's arms wrapped firmly around her, one hand cupping the base of her skull, the other rubbing circles into the small of her back, and his low chuckle in her ear.

A part of her, the part that had never stopped missing and craving another warm human body, the part that kept her from pitching that stupid ring, the part she had mostly managed to ignore thus far, was filled with warmth and an absurd sense of contentment. The greater, more rational part of her was terrified, and suspicious.

"I bet you thought I forgot, didn't you?" She could feel his voice as much as she could hear it, the way it vibrated through his chest. "About my promise?"

Chell had _hoped_ he hadn't forgotten. She had hoped that he would think about how he had betrayed that promise to take care of her for every moment he was floating in space; that he _could_ think of nothing else. And she was petty enough to have hoped that it would eat him up inside, destroy him with guilt, as it evidentially had not.

"Oh no, I haven't forgotten," he murmured, voice barely above a whisper as he leaned down and began to nuzzle her hair. "Ol' Wheatley is a man of his word, you see. I know, we've done a lot of things that we both regret…" The words were worryingly familiar, and Chell had a feeling things were about to go just as badly for her as they had the first time she had heard them.

"But I, at least, am willing to put all that behind us. And I'm going to keep my promise. I will keep you, take care of you. And everything's going to be. Just. _Fine_. Right, luv?"

He drew back to look at her, still smirking. Chell stared, unable to blink or tear her eyes away from his, which were glowing so brightly they had gone nearly white.

Wheatley took hold of her injured hands, lightly ran his thumb along the skin near one of the cuts. Chell had to suppress a shudder.

"Let's start here. Why don't you lead the way home so I can fix that up for you?" The way he gripped her wrist, the subtle but unmistakable force of it, made it clear to her that this was not a mere suggestion.

Chell knew there was a point were tenacity ceased to be a positive thing, and that being held hostage by a proven-insane cyborg who could easily kill her if things didn't go his way was probably it.

But she couldn't just switch off her stubbornness, not like Wheatley seemed to have done to the parts of him that were sweet and kind and endearingly awkward, so she remained immobile and glared at him, trying to infuse as much defiance into her gaze as possible.

Wheatley shook his head and clicked his tongue again, as if she were some naughty child resisting bedtime rather than a woman being forced to lead a maniac to her home, her sanctuary. When she did not relent after a few moments and once again tried in vain to tug her wrists out of his hold, he squeezed, hard enough to hurt. For one terrible moment she was sure he was going to break her arms, but the moment passed and he relaxed his grip.

"I _could_ do it," he murmured. "I could do it if I wanted. I mean, you humans are just so… breakable. Human. Singular. Because it's just you left, isn't it, luv?" Chell flinched.

"But _don't_ want to. Hurt you, I mean. It's bad enough I left you down here all alone for so long, after I swore up and down that I would be there for you. But that's what I'm gonna do now. Make up for lost time, yeah?"

Finally he released her wrists, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the town.

"Lead the way." Chell merely narrowed her eyes, squared her shoulders, and stiffened her back, giving her the appearance of having nearly an inch of height added, although that still left her woefully small in comparison to Wheatley. He sighed, touching two fingers to his temple.

"It's not that I don't admire your stubbornness," he said. "In fact it's one of my favorite things about you. But it really isn't doing you any good in this case. I'm not going away. I can definitely out-stubborn you on this one." And looking at his suddenly stern face, Chell found she believed him.

She hated to admit defeat, but she also wasn't stupid enough to provoke a being who had her outclassed in nearly every physical aspect and had already proven his willingness to take full advantage of that fact. She was smart enough to realize that with her fear clouding her thoughts, devising a better plan than "acquiesce" would be near impossible. Without ceremony, Chell turned on her heel and began to march in the direction of the Winnebago.

She moved as quickly as her legs could carry her, but Wheatley's legs were quicker. He caught up with her and placed a hand on the small of her back, as though he were the one with any idea of where they were going, and more infuriating, as though he had the right to touch her like that at all.

She didn't turn, but she found herself paying close attention to the sound of his footsteps from behind her. She felt somewhat fascinated by the difference in cadence between his stride and hers, despite herself.

To distract herself from this Chell massaged her wrists gingerly with her fingertips, trying to bend her burning, still palms as little as possible. She didn't think there would be marks; the only thing Wheatley had bruised was her pride.

Evidentially he noticed the attention she was giving her hands; out of the corner of her eye she saw him smile ruefully, and she looked over at him.

"Bit of a shame, that," he said, waggling the crowbar in the air, holding it at the end that wasn't stained with blood (or at least wasn't stained with her own or fresh blood). The small grin stretched into another smirk. "Though it is nice to know you haven't gone soft while I was away."

Chell's face twisted up into a snarl and suddenly she was burning up with anger. In that moment she hated him. Hated him for stealing the words right from her brain, for making her feel scared and weak for the first time in ages, for ruining her sense of safety and normalcy and _everything_ she had worked so hard for in her life outside Aperture. And more than anything else she hated him for that smug look on his face that failed to vanish even as she directed the nastiest look she could produce at him.

"I know you aren't too pleased with it, yet, luv," Wheatley crooned. "But I can't tell you how happy _I_ am about all this.

"It's just _so_ nice to see you again."


	3. Poison

**A/N:**

**Ey. Eyyy. You see how this story is rated M? Just... reiterating that.**

Part 3: Poison

It had been perhaps a week since Wheatley had come barging back into her life, and already he had managed to make a pest of himself.

The first day, despite it's start, had not been too terrible. He dressed her injured hands surprisingly competently, although considering his position in charge of caring for sleeping test subjects, maybe it shouldn't have been so surprising. The whole time he chattered on about how he had managed to return to earth, going into unnecessary detail describing his repairs of a derelict Aperture Science satellite to carry him back.

Chell had pretended not to be interested, but the truth was that she harbored a certain fascination with machines and how they worked, one that she liked to think existed well before her imprisonment in Aperture Labs, and not because of it. As he had finished wrapping the last bit of bandage, she'd found herself wondering about the potential to be found in the satellite, and devising plans for fetching it.

He had left her alone for the remaining few hours of daylight, attempting to wrangle Apollo, who could be heard racing about, nearly delirious with excitement and hooting about every bird and beetle as if it were the most incredible thing he'd ever seen.

Things had taken a downturn that evening, when he finally gave up on catching Apollo and tromped back inside, muttering to himself about how the smaller cyborg would be fine on his own. He had stayed close to her side as she prepared her dinner, and watched her eat. He didn't ask for any, which was fine by her, as she had no intention of making an offer.

He had, however, insisted on sharing her bed, sleeping, or whatever it was he did to recharge, on the side of the double mattress she didn't use. Despite what she felt was a rather spectacular voicing of her objections, even if she happened to lack a voice, she had been unable to drive him out. That first night she hadn't slept at all, staying alert against any undesirable advances on his part. But it seemed as though he had isome/i measure, albeit a very small one, of decency left in him after all. He never tried anything.

Since then she had been subjected to his full attention.

His full, infuriating attention.

For one thing, he almost never stopped talking. True, had had been the same way ever since she'd first met him, long before the chassis had changed him. But back then his constant chatter had been accompanied by amusingly broad hand gestures and expressions that were friendly, enthusiastic, or bashful, sometimes all three at once. Now his face and voice were nearly always tinged with an arrogance that he used to lack.

For another, he had the infuriating tendency to touch her. He would sling one long arm across her shoulders or slip it around her waist, press his broad palm to the small of her back, lightly grasp her chin between his thumb and forefinger when he spoke to her. Even when he wasn't actually touching her he was always much too iclose/i, hovering or looming so near that she could feel the heat seeping from his body into the air, and she still hadn't managed to fully shake the twinge of fear that raced up her back when he did this. Although she had grown very good at hiding it, presenting no outward appearance of nervousness, she had a feeling he knew anyway, and it irked her.

What irked her even more was that that twinge wasn't all unpleasant, that he evoked more in her than just fear. In the same way her body had wanted to lean into his embrace back at the flea market, it now seemed to be craving contact in a way that it never really had before, as though Wheatley's presence was stirring up instinctual desires that had long lain dormant.

And worst of all, she had a feeling he knew about ithat/i, too.

His favorite thing to touch by far was her hair. It seemed like Chell could not go fifteen minutes without him brushing a loose strand away from her face or playing with it, twirling her ponytail around his finger or combing his hand through it if it was down. It drove her absolutely nuts, in more ways than she wanted to admit.

While she could dissuade him from other unwanted contact, at least for a while, with a sharp glance or an irate gesture, to which he would respond with a wry smile and a shrug, and leave her alone for a few hours, nothing seemed to put him off her hair.

So two days ago, she had had enough and in a fit of irritation took a swing at him. With startling speed he had intercepted her fist, stopping it centimeters from his face, now wearing a dark scowl, reminding her just why she was afraid of him (much as she hated to admit it). Several tense, terrifying seconds passed as Chell tried to extricate her hand from his grip and they glared at each other, caught up in a strange staring contest, before he finally let her go.

She retreated and locked herself in the bathroom (not that the flimsy door would have posed much of an obstacle to Wheatley, but at least he seemed to have some measure of respect for her privacy). After checking her palm to make sure her cut hadn't reopened, she stood in front of the mirror and took a pair of nail scissors to the back of her head, shearing off her entire ponytail.

She looked so ridiculous in her reflection, uneven ends sticking out in all directions, and the longer sides of her hair hanging limply around her face like dog's ears, that she almost laughed. She trimmed the rest of her hair into the best semblance of order that she could, and swept up the loose bits from the floor with a towel, dumping them in the wastebasket.

She nearly pitched her ponytail as well, still bound together in its tie, but stopped herself. Weighing it in her hand, she considered for a moment, then smirked at herself in the mirror before exiting the bathroom.

Wheatley was sitting at the kitchen table as she emerged, chin propped up in his hand and his long legs stretching out almost across the entire floor. He opened his mouth to say something, but froze when he actually got a good look at her. Brows raised, mouth still hanging open, he looked almost comically shocked.

Chell marched right up to him, her incredible stubbornness the only thing keeping her from dissolving into mocking laughter at his expression, and thrust the bundle of hair at him. He took it silently, struck dumb for once, and she turned on her heel and left the Winnebago, not returning until well after dark. He didn't mention her spiteful haircut, and he had not touched her hair since.

Although he had often brought up her mute state back in the facility, and proposed trying to teach her to speak, he hadn't mentioned it since his return. Until today, that was, when he had apparently decided that his own voice was not enough to fill the silence and that it was very important for her to start talking right away.

He had spoken of nearly nothing else all day, and it had quickly started to wear on Chell's nerves. Despite her demonstrating that she could communicate quite clearly without a voice by communicating though glares, eye rolls, and angry hand gestures her disdain for his efforts, he had persisted.

Her only respite had been the twenty or so minutes she had spent in the shower; the absence of his voice had felt like a blessing. As she toweled her newly short hair dry, she seriously considered laying several towels across the bottom of the tub and sleeping there.

Ultimately, the appeal of a nice, soft mattress was too great, and, cursing herself for getting spoiled to that creature comfort, she returned to the tiny bedroom. He was waiting there for her, of course, and he immediately started harping on her talking again.

"I'm not asking for you to recite Machiavelli. Even just a little hum will do."

Chell turned her back on him, fussing with the bedclothes as he kept on talking.

"It isn't so hard, really. Think of it like breathing out, only sort of tense your throat. Give it a go, luv, go on." Chell adjusted the pillows, walked right past him to the opposite wall, and clicked off the light, hoping that the action would serve to end the very one-sided conversation. It didn't.

"Is it that you're frightened you can't do it? It's alright if you can't at first, we'll just have you keep practicing." It wasn't that his tone was particularly condescending, but still, the implication was a bit of a blow to her pride. He thought she was iafraid/i? Afraid of what? Failure?

She whipped around, face scrunched in a snarl. Eyes wide and angry, she pressed her lips together and pushed air up through her throat, hoping that failing right there and then, and showing him just how unbothered she was by it, would get him to finally drop the subject.

"Hhhhhmmmm—" She could feel it in her chest, the sound she made, her diaphragm buzzing slightly, her teeth itching a little from the vibration. Her eyes widened and she turned away from him, her hand flying up to her neck. She worked her throat, trying to recreate that sound, her voice. iHer/i voice.

"Hah! Knew you had it in you!" Wheatley crowed, as if this was his triumph and not hers. Chell paid him no mind, still trying to coax her voice (iher voice!/i) back out again.

"You have such a pretty voice, luv. It really suits you." He was very close— when had he gotten so close?— and she could feel his warmth radiating out against her back. She turned, and jumped a little when she found him even nearer than she had expected, barely an inch away.

There was something in the look he was giving her, something intense and somehow familiar, that made her feel as though the bottom of her stomach had dropped out. Before she had the chance to place it, however, in a swift and startling movement he took her face in both hands, and his mouth come crashing down on hers.

Her jaw went slack with surprise, making it all too easy for him to push his tongue past her lips and slip smoothly into her mouth. Chell's eyelids fluttered and she sucked in a hard breath through her nose. He tasted so strange, a little like oil and a little like something else that she couldn't put her finger on.

Even if her mind didn't recognize the flavor, it seemed as though her body certainly did, and it was reacting quite favorably. Her heart started to pound, her head felt pleasantly buzzy, her legs went weak and an ache spread low in her belly. Almost reflexively her tongue rose to push and glide back against his, and her fingers tangled in his hair seemingly of their own accord.

A low, approving growl rumbled up from his chest as his hands wandered over her, grabbing at her waist and pulling her tight against him before running up along her ribcage and finally cupping her breasts. His huge hands covered the modest swells of flesh almost completely, and Chell felt her nipples tighten and press into the warmth of his palms. Her entire body felt electrified and tense, and oddly free of fear, despite being decidedly closer to him than she had been at any other point. She nearly tripped over her own feet as he began to push her backwards.

Something— the edge of the bed— struck against her calves, and she toppled backwards, landing heavily on the mattress. Her breath escaped her in a painful huff beneath his weight, and the discomfort was enough to jar a little sensibility back into her thoughts. She stiffened upon realizing just how compromising a position she was in, and she could feel a particular part of him stiffening as well, pushing into her hip in a way that made her want to writhe against him, want to feel him sink into her and—

iNo./i No, she absolutely did inot/i want that. She didn't want to feel him moving inside her, didn't want the friction or the heat, didn't want his mouth ianywhere/i on her body, let alone all over it. Because wanting any of those things would be giving up, giving in, giving him power over her again.

So despite the flush spreading beneath her skin and the moisture pushing outward from her core, she wrenched her mouth away from his, turning her face to the side. Wheatley didn't seem put off in the slightest, merely shifting his attentions to the edge of her jaw. She had to forcibly suppress a shudder when he nipped lightly at the skin.

Chell decided that enough was enough. Detangling one hand from his hair she shoved hard against his shoulder. He paused briefly, just long enough to raise an eyebrow at her, before dipping his head back down to brush his mouth against the sensitive skin of her throat. She hit him again and he pulled back, his features clouded with irritation. For a long moment they simply glared at each other, before Wheatley's expression suddenly softened and he pushed himself upward so that his weight wasn't pressing down on her so much.

"Alright," he murmured, "If you ireally/i don't want it, then I won't force you." He lifted himself off her and stood at the foot of the bed, straightened his mussed clothes.

"After all," he said conversationally, "I promised I would take care of you and, well, that'd sort of be the opposite, yeah?" He gave her a smile that was only half mocking, and extended a hand to help her up. Chell didn't take it, opting instead to scoot herself up to the head of the bed and bury herself in the blankets, so that only her glowering face was visible. He shrugged, now smirking fully. She pointedly turned her back to him as he flopped down on the other side of the bed.

"G'night luv," Wheatley crooned, his voice heavy and rough with unmet need and it sent a jolt of something pleasant and iunwanted/i through her. Damn him, he was doing that on purpose. Chell did her best to ignore him, curling further in on herself and doing her best to will away her arousal, or at least rationalize it into submission.

She could at least take some comfort in the idea that it wasn't ihim/i specifically that had sent her blood into this frenzy of heat. This mad want was nothing more than traitorous chemicals reacting to the novel presence of another warm body.

She could take some comfort in that, yes, but the idea that her body was so starved for the touch of another human being, or at least something like enough to one, that it would react so readily to ihim/i was disquieting.

Maybe this would be easier if she didn't know exactly what it was that she wanted, but the problem was that she did remember. She remembered a boy and a bed, the backseat of a car and rain falling outside, remembered the building heat and the breaking release, the slow burn spreading from every point of contact, iso/i much better than when she touched herself.

Chell shifted restlessly, squeezing her thighs together briefly, hoping that the movement would do even a little to help ease the discomfort between her legs (it didn't). The strength of this arousal was foreign to her, much more intense than any desire she'd felt since being freed, much sharper and more focused. She wondered if touching herself would even be enough to satisfy her at this point, enough to truly soothe this… this…

iitch/i.

She twitched hard, horrified that she had actually allowed that word to pass through her thoughts, then froze, listening hard for some sort of reaction from the other side of the bed. But if Wheatley had noticed her little outburst, he gave no indication of it.

This was nothing she couldn't deal with, she told herself, nothing she couldn't control. It didn't matter what the urgent heat pooling in her belly seemed to indicate, didn't matter that her heart was racing and her skin tingling and every muscle coiled up tight. She didn't need him.

She didn't.

Didn't need his weight pressing down on her (she curled in on herself a little tighter). Didn't need the foreign warmth or texture of his hands (she shivered, running her own hands up and down her arms, dragging her fingertips along her collarbone). Didn't need the odd but all too appealing taste of his mouth (she found herself biting her lip, trying to find him there).

Fuck it. Fuck all of it, she decided, this wasn't working. With an angry huff she flopped on to her back, turning her head to glare at him. He smiled serenely back, although she could see the edge to that smile, and there was certainly no mistaking the erection straining against the fabric of his pants. Her face went hot at the sight, and with a scowl she grabbed him by the shirtfront and yanked him over to her side of the bed, pulling him back on top of her.

"Changed your mind, have you?" She answered by taking his lower lip between her teeth and tugging, biting down until she tasted metal and he groaned against her lips.

They made short work of each other's clothes, pulling them roughly off, tossing them carelessly over the side of the bed. Evidentially, lying in the dark and wanting had left them both with little patience for foreplay.

Completely exposed, Chell shivered despite the warmth of the summer night air as Wheatley ran his hand down the outside of her thigh before grasping at the back of her knee. He drew her leg outward, giving himself better access, and she hooked her other leg around his waist as he lined himself up and pushed.

There was some resistance, some discomfort— after all, how long had it been?— but it was all but swallowed up by a feeling of relief so intense that it was almost it's own ache. He stopped, hovering above her, she supposed to catch his breath, and she closed her eyes and tried to do the same.

One moment stretched into another, and Wheatley remained still. The aching relief was rapidly becoming less relief and more it's own sort of agony, and almost on instinct Chell rolled her hips up against his, seeking some respite. He thrust hard against her, pinning her down against the mattress and she sucked in a ragged breath, her back trying to arch but unable to move much beneath his weight. The pressure was a bit uncomfortable, but it didn't matter much because ioh that was exquisite/i.

And he froze again. Chell struggled to regain some of that wonderful friction, but couldn't, and he chuckled low in her ear.

"This is a little familiar, isn't it?" he murmured. "One of just wants to feel good more than anything else... well, both of us right now, really. But you know what they say about turnabout, don't you?" Chell stared, absolutely dumbfounded.

"Let's say you solve just one test for me, luv, just like old times. Just one little test before you get your reward." Oh, god, he couldn't possibly be serious. But it seemed as though he was. "Since you did so well with the humming, why don't we try something along those lines? Maybe a real word this time. Let me hear that lovely voice of yours again…"

She glowered, and rocked her head back and forth against the pillow. No, she wouldn't.

"Oh, don't be like that. Tell you what: I'll go easy on you. Something simple. Just say 'Wheatley'," he leaned in, brushing his nose across her cheek, and she shivered despite herself. "Wheeeat-ley," he breathed against her skin. Chell squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed heavily.

She didn't even need to consciously make the decision to wait him out, it simply came naturally. It was a ridiculous little game anyway; even if she had been willing to play along, she couldn't. But even if he couldn't understand that one broken vocalization didn't mean she could suddenly speak, she was sure that after a few moments the urgent drive to move would make him forget about this ultimatum.

A few moments turned into several minutes. The tension was driving Chell to desperation; the way he had her pushed down against the mattress meant that she couldn't really move, could only achieve the tiniest of grinds and it wasn't nearly enough to be of any relief. And still Wheatley held out, though he looked like he was having just as hard a time of it as she.

Chell's hands roamed over him, trying anything she could think of to get him to give up this farce. She trailed her fingers across his chest, along his ribs, down his back, feeling the raised places around the ports positioned along his spine. She rubbed circles around the edge of the largest one in the center of his back and he nearly whined.

But his hips remained infuriatingly still.

Wheatley's eyes were closed, his brow furrowed, his lips parted and trembling as he drew another shaky breath. He shook his head slowly back and forth, gritting his teeth before looking at her. His eyes were fevered and literally glowing, a fierce and almost frightening blue. While it was clear enough that the look was intended to be a glare, any chance of being intimidating was ruined when he immediately started begging.

"iPlease/i try to be sensible, luv." His voice was almost gravelly, stretched tight and the sound of it made her already tensed muscles tighten further. With a small start she wondered if he even realized that he could be the one to give in, or if he had pushed himself past the point of that sort of reason. "You're making this h-harder than it hah— than it has to be."

Chell tried her best to glare right back at him, but she had a feeling that her eyes were just as bright, just as needy, and just as useless at conveying what she really wanted them to. She rubbed around the rim of the port again, pressing down harder, then dragged her fingertips across it. Her nail caught briefly on a bit of exposed mechanics and it sparked, sending a jolt of heat through her arm.

His eyes went wide and a long shudder rolled all through him, his chin tilting upward, throat stretching, Adam's-apple bobbing as he made a soft, desperate keening sound. His arms shook and he leaned heavily on her. The movement caused his lower body to shift and grind against hers. It was just the barest of thrusts, but it was friction and sensation and after spending so long nearly dying of need it was enough to make Chell's toes curl and her breath catch in a sob and oh god please please iplease/i.

It was as though she was no longer in full control of her body, the same as when he had kissed her and she had pulled him close when her rational mind should have been screaming to push him away. She could feel her mouth move and shape around his name even as no sound came out, the purse and stretch of her lips, the flicker of tongue behind her teeth.

For a brief, confusing moment his weight disappeared, but with a loud and wild sound, something between a gasp and a growl, he suddenly brought his hips slamming back into hers. Her back bowed up and away from the mattress, her legs clenched in a vice-grip around his waist, her fingers clutching at the sheets as he drove into her, hard and hurried and frantic, her head thrown back, her throat working around a cry that she couldn't give voice to, while Wheatley made noise enough for the both of them.

Eventually he slowed his pace, his movements softening into a leisurely grind before finally stopping altogether. For a moment they were still and he was uncharacteristically quiet, the only sound that of his ragged breathing.

He started laughing softly, and Chell could feel it buzzing between them, vibrating from his chest into hers as he buried his face in the crook of her neck.

"That's close enough," he purred, and dragged his tongue up her neck, over the place where her pulse hammered wildly beneath her skin. "iHmmmm/i. Good girl."

He started to move again, his pace a little slower, his motions a little more controlled, and Chell allowed herself to be swamped by the building liquid heat as it pushed upward from her hips. She twined her arms around Wheatley's shoulders for leverage, pushed her body upward to meet his thrusts.

She could feel something like a knot growing inside her, a feeling that was all at once torture and ecstasy, the most exquisite tension. Her face was flushed, her bottom lip red and swollen from her biting it, her limbs trembling as she writhed. Above her, Wheatley shifted, moving his weight to one arm, freeing the other to snake between them, moving downward to the point where their bodies came together.

Slowly and surprisingly gently, he dragged his fingers across her clit, sending a feeling almost electric singing through her nerves. He drew small circles around it, winding her up tighter and tighter until Chell almost couldn't take it anymore, and then something finally let go.

The knot unraveled, her back arched, and she was nearly overwhelmed with a heady crush of feeling. She was so lost in it that she couldn't bring her self to fight against, or even care, that his name was once more on her lips in the wake of the receding tension.

Where before she had been totally silent, now there was a sound: a scratchy, whispery 'iheeee/i' from somewhere deep in her throat. It was breathy and barely audible, but something about it was apparently enough to send Wheatley careening over the edge with a startled shout.

He pulsed within her, and Chell watched him, fascinated in spite of herself, as he came. He looked absolutely helpless in the grip of orgasm, back arched, teeth clenched, diodes flickering wildly and throwing mad shadows against the walls. A deep, guttural groan spilled from his throat as he finished, edged with static.

He collapsed on top of her, and she let him lay where he was, waiting until her last twitching aftershocks had passed before she started trying to push him away. He pulled back, and she grimaced at the unpleasant sensation of him sliding out of her. He hovered above her and she could practically ifeel/i him watching her, but she looked to the side and refused to spare him so much as a glance. She could imagine the smug, self-satisfied look on his face well enough on her own.

Finally he moved away, and she turned her back on him once more, feeling more than a little disgusted with herself, but satiated. She would change the sheets tomorrow, she thought as she started to drift off, and swore to herself that when she scrubbed the remnants of him from her skin in the morning that she would also be getting him out from under it.

**PART 4 STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION**


End file.
